Five Assumptions

Grid Work of Reality

Our assumptions lay the grid of reality as we understand and practice it. We fit the information that we receive through experience and education onto that grid. We measure the unseen world from that grid and act accordingly.

(This is an excerpt taken from God, the Bible and Political Justice, the book Landa is currently writing.)

We weave sophisticated tapestries of reality and truth that have profound impact on the way we see the world and how it works and what we perceive the problems and answers to be.

For example we observe that matter is consumed to create energy and then assume that matter must be consumed by energy. We might assume “matter is limited” because that is our experience. Then we put these two assumptions together to conclude that energy requires the consumption of matter, therefore the universe is running down and we are running out ofmatter. We build a view of economics on this and assume “limited resources.” We build our concept of community and population on this and assume we are having “too many babies” and “population is the problem.” We might begin to believe that birth control and abortion are our only hope for survival. Shrinking oil reserves increase our anxiety and we might begin to assume this is the end of man and earth, as we know it. We base our scientific research on this and assume the answer to environmental devastation is to limit population growth. This is profound and implicative stuff and our world is working with assumptions like this everyday. We accept them as “reality.” We work to design solutions around these “beliefs.” We work to legislate them into law. But are they true? Physicist are at least looking at the possibility that the cosmos is actually creating matter as well as consuming it. What other assumptions are we building on that may not be true?

How could anyone evaluate the assumptions of our culture or belief of the age they live in? Our data and experience are limited. Not one of us was presentat the origins of the universe. Not one of us has, nor can, travel to the extremities of the cosmos and document exactly how it works. We cannot know everything but we can and do know “something.” We are all working with the information we have and with the assumptions our experience and culture give us.

If our assumptions are true our view of reality may be true. If our assumptions are false our view of reality will be distorted and our solutions, while well intended, may be skewed producing outcomes we had not intended, or worse yet, create bigger problems.

God’s Five Foundational Assumptions

God gives us five “revealed” truths in Scripture on which to build our understanding of reality. These truths must be “revealed” by God because they are beyond our human ability to experience or know. All Biblical thought and teaching is anchored in these five assumptions. As Christians, we hold them to be true because God is real and He knows. He reveals these truths to us in the cosmos, in Scripture and through His Son. When we hold onto these five Biblical assumptions we cannot drift far from a Biblical view of reality.

God’s Five Foundational Assumptions

1. God is!

2. God is the creator of the Universe, the material world, both seen and unseen.

3. The human race, male and female, are created in the image of God and His central purpose for all creation.

4. Every thing God has made is infected by sin and fallen.

5. Everything is redeemable

(If you would like to read more please go to the above link called, “Related Resources” and then choose “Landa’s books”. This section is found in chapter two.)